Lack of proper street naming impedes tax mobilisation – GRA

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has listed the absence of street names as a major challenge that hinders and impedes tax collection in Ghana.

The Authority says the development remains one of their biggest constraints especially as they find it difficult to identify tax payers to retrieve tax revenue from.

Business Associations had also earlier accused the GRA of causing huge revenue loss to the state as they refuse to retrieve taxes from shop owners and small tax payers.

They argued that majority of shop owners do not pay taxes and the GRA have turned a blind eye on them.

“I must admit that we have challenges in Ghana when it comes to street naming, it is a challenge so it becomes very difficult being able to actually get to people. There are some people who will walk to the office and give a location to where their shops and offices are but you go there and they are not there. So proper description of location becomes a challenge and it actually impedes tax collection,” Chief Revenue Officer at the Large Tax Payer Office of the GRA, Dominic Naab stated.

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), has so far identified and named 4,312 streets in all 10 sub- metros within the jurisdiction of the AMA in the Greater Accra Region.

In an interview with Citi Business News, Mr. Dominic Naab urged government to speed up the process of street naming to make streets more accessible to their outfit.

“The street naming has started, we are hoping that it will be completed very soon so we can have clear locations of tax payers to be able to get them to file their returns” he added.